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Post by John on May 12, 2014 7:25:13 GMT -5
To open a couple of large collieries in the UK??
It's now over a quarter of a century since the mass closings, where have all the certificated people gone??
Are there any current holders of Managers, Undermanagers, Deputy's/Elec Eng/Mech Eng/Elecs/Mechs/Surveyors tickets, in fact enough of all to open any underground colliery venture left???
We've had discussions on reopening closed collieries, but I don't think anyone has put any emphasis on the skilled certificated manpower needed to open/reopen a colliery.
I doubt there is enough Mines Inspectors either to "police" any new colliery projects..
Scary!!!!
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Post by Wheldale on May 12, 2014 12:38:33 GMT -5
I don't think it's impossible. There are lots of people out there with tickets, it's if they have experience? Plus as well, the people with the relevant experience will be in their fifties, would they be willing to go back into the industry?
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Post by John on May 13, 2014 7:28:08 GMT -5
I don't think it's impossible. There are lots of people out there with tickets, it's if they have experience? Plus as well, the people with the relevant experience will be in their fifties, would they be willing to go back into the industry?
I don't know what the legal implications would be..
Youngest blokes would be in their fifties now, the best you could hope for with many of them, is to lure them with high pay etc for training new blood, I doubt anyone in their fifties wants to bust a gut driving headings or new faces, that's a young mans job, especially in this seams.
I know from my point of view that I would need refresher courses on newer equipment, if I was still young enough to even contemplate going back underground. |
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Post by colly0410 on May 13, 2014 11:41:05 GMT -5
Love to go down again for a visit & a look round, wouldn't want to go down 5 days a week though, no way..
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Post by smshogun on Aug 2, 2014 20:23:51 GMT -5
John, we moved away from steam power years ago.
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Post by snowy on Jan 27, 2015 15:31:24 GMT -5
Love to go down again for a visit & a look round, wouldn't want to go down 5 days a week though, no way.. Ive just been with my nephew to Caphouse underground trip and to be fair its a bit sterile but still enjoyable |
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Post by colly0410 on Jan 28, 2015 5:06:38 GMT -5
I want to go to Caphouse sometime when I get chance. I've been to the mock-up mine at the 'black country living museum' at Dudley, it looked a bit like a pit but it didn't feel or smell like one. I was more interested in the trams & trolley-buses they had, hadn't seen a trolley-bus since I was in Russia. Oh yeah & the old schoolroom where they threatened to cane you for some small misdemeanour, now that took me back. Also enjoyed the f*g**ts & mushy peas in the canteen.  |
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Clive
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Post by Clive on Feb 1, 2015 14:41:41 GMT -5
Hi Colly. I was at the black country museum in september, they had the Newcomon engine in steam. Know what you mean about it all being sterrile, even caphouse. Theres no way you can recreate the smells and the crack, even the dissapeating clank of a belt joint as it moves away from you and the hiss of compressed air.
What was good about Dudley was just seeing how they had worked that thick coal, heving spent most of my life in 18 inch I thought it was pretty good. To an extent seeieng the dummys and them giving out diologue, you could sort of identifiy with them and imagine what it would have been like to be in their team. Wouldn't have liked to be the bloke up the ladder though.
Fish n chips excellent, didn't get a pint and i cant do a hoop and stick for toffee
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Post by erichall on Feb 6, 2015 9:32:27 GMT -5
Hi, John and Wheldale.
Sorry I haven't posted for a long while, but unfortunately age and a new found love of Male Voice Singing have taken up a lot of my time recently.
I think that, from memory, I can put together a team of Class 1(Managers) holders,and with a bit of scrounging might pick up a couple of the various Engineers, but I am certain that we would all be too old, infirm and unwilling to go down again. It must be some 18 months since , my Daughter-in-Law, a keen photographer, along with my son, my wife and myself had a run around and went to Caphouse. Here they persuaded me to break my solemn vow, made when I left High Moor, to NEVER go underground again, a vow many of us made.I certainly wouldn't be fit enough to do so regularly, and wouldn't be keen, but theoretically I believe enough of us 'old-timers' would be available. Unfortunately, I know from talking to newer, younger members of the profession, that we would be 'outdated' and nowhere near proficient enough with the new technology. I know in the 30 or so years I spent from the '60's onward, how quickly things changed. I remember when I was in my 40's, telling my Dad who worked in the mines pre-war, that he wouldn't know where he was in a modern mine. I have no doubt that this would apply to us now.
As regards the sounds and smells of pits, yes,there are some sounds that remain embeded in the mind, but as I was telling someone recently, smells were different. I said that, once in the return pit bottom, you could tell by smell alone which pit you were in. Each had its own particular smell,varying from an onion flavour, where raw onions were a regular part of the menu, to wallflowers, where wallflower-scented snuff was the norm.
Ah, happy (and many sad) days.
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Post by John on Feb 6, 2015 13:22:39 GMT -5
I suppose if push came to shove, if coal became necessary to mine in the future, they could hire Australian's to teach mining, and set up mining courses at colleges.
The NSW mining regs were pretty similar to the UK regs, Class 1, 2 and 3 tickets had the same requirements, as did The Mine Electrician and Mine Mechanic requirements are similar to the UK's Elec Eng and Mech Eng's tickets.
Below those it's a different kettle of fish.
The only things that will be lost, are local knowledge of mining conditions.
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Clive
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Post by Clive on Feb 7, 2015 17:10:36 GMT -5
Hi, John and Wheldale. Sorry I haven't posted for a long while, but unfortunately age and a new found love of Male Voice Singing have taken up a lot of my time recently. Hi Eric, father did a lot of that inm years gone by, used to be with the Rossendale male voice choir back in the 50s when they won LLanghollan 3 times, once beating Pavaroties choir. Used to go and watch them sometimes. sadly passed on and the choir aint what it was, its a mixed one now, but they used to have some really cleaver arraingements, love one they did of 'drunken sailor' |
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Post by John on Feb 7, 2015 18:24:13 GMT -5
I don't know about male voice choirs, but a feller who was an apprentice elec at Clifton same time as me, used to play in the Bestwood Colliery brass band. He ended up as the music director for them and still is, but the band is now the Bestwood Black Diamonds Brass Band.
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Post by bulwellbrian on Feb 8, 2015 4:20:34 GMT -5
I don't know about male voice choirs, but a feller who was an apprentice elec at Clifton same time as me, used to play in the Bestwood Colliery brass band. He ended up as the music director for them and still is, but the band is now the Bestwood Black Diamonds Brass Band. I am sure it was the Bestwood Black Diamonds Brass Band in the early 1960's. Maybe long before that. |
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Post by John on Feb 8, 2015 7:12:54 GMT -5
I don't know about male voice choirs, but a feller who was an apprentice elec at Clifton same time as me, used to play in the Bestwood Colliery brass band. He ended up as the music director for them and still is, but the band is now the Bestwood Black Diamonds Brass Band. I am sure it was the Bestwood Black Diamonds Brass Band in the early 1960's. Maybe long before that. |
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Post by colly0410 on Feb 8, 2015 10:48:54 GMT -5
I joined the Black Diamonds in 1968 & they were called 'Bestwood Black Diamonds,' Bestwood pit had closed about a year before so they must have changed their name more or less straight away. BTW I had zero musical talent so was thrown out, I only joined because there were pretty girl in it. I joined the St Johns Ambulance instead, they had pretty girls too & I ended up going out with one, until she caught me kissing her best friend, then the shouting & fuss started.. |
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Post by John on Feb 8, 2015 12:36:33 GMT -5
I joined the Black Diamonds in 1968 & they were called 'Bestwood Black Diamonds,' Bestwood pit had closed about a year before so they must have changed their name more or less straight away. BTW I had zero musical talent so was thrown out, I only joined because there were pretty girl in it. I joined the St Johns Ambulance instead, they had pretty girls too & I ended up going out with one, until she caught me kissing her best friend, then the shouting & fuss started.. |
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Post by colly0410 on Feb 8, 2015 13:12:09 GMT -5
I was a bad lad John, she went & told my Mam what I'd done. Mam said "you shouldn't kiss other girls when you're going out with someone," Dad just fell about laughing.. |
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merlin
Shotfirer.
prop and lid
Posts: 64 
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Post by merlin on Apr 17, 2015 14:21:42 GMT -5
john it is spelled llangollen
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merlin
Shotfirer.
prop and lid
Posts: 64
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Post by merlin on May 6, 2015 14:09:06 GMT -5
liked to know whats the wages for afaceworker is now
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Post by dazbt on May 6, 2015 14:51:25 GMT -5
liked to know whats the wages for afaceworker is now I suppose it depends who you are working for, I believe that CIL (Coal India Ltd) were paying around £45 a week for a faceworker last year, can't imagine many Yanks or miners in The Land of Downside Uppermost working for such a pittance. |
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Post by smshogun on May 28, 2015 21:03:31 GMT -5
John:
You don't need them now as M&Q has all but been abolished and its covered by H&S instead.
Is it possible to open large collieries? yes, and during the Thatcher years a plan was devised for such an operational capability to be maintained by the country to this day to allow a large coal or other deep mine to be opened in double quick time and there were two main methods to be used.
In and Outs are nicknamed as they are adit or drift mines driven from the surface at a semi steep angle from the surface, one machine starts from one surface location and one from another, as they drift down they use pipe jacking initially then switch to a concrete sprayed lining over roof/floor bolts driven into the strata and where necessary use pre-fabricated tunnel linings. When they hit the first viable coal seam they tunnel from each end with heading machines in the coal so essentially you have one roadway with a drift each end to the surface.
As the heading machines head the roadway out the tunnelling machines continue with the drifts right down to the lowest viable seam to reduce both costs and lead times to coaling, once the 1st roadway is headed out you have through ventilation using smaller powered fans as you can suck and blow at the same time, now the clever bit, you can also install a series of filters to reduce dust emissions to comply with environmental legislation and you can have two coaling routes out of the mine using conveyors as they are much more efficient than winding up shafts and much cheaper, plus you still have your two means of egress.
From this main road you drive your gates and develop your face, and with full flow ventilation you get a lot of air without unnecessarily ventilating a lot of roadways, only the main roads and working faces, and you can load coal out of both gates onto two separate conveyors to exit through both drifts, as this face is coaling you develop your next face/s straight off this main road.
Instead of a huge site on the surface you have two much smaller sites both having a smaller and compact coal prep plants and you can stand one while still producing from the other which means you have the option of a low profile site which is less conspicuous to the casual onlooker as they wouldn't know a mine existed.
To enter the mine you use swipe cards and have both drift belts as manriding belts, you have now eliminated the major costs of sinking shafts, installing skips, winding both coal and men as men ride into the mine and supplies can travel on a monorail system in essentially a straight line and men can go to whichever drift is the closest to the workings for even more efficiency and longer coaling times.
As each seam is opened up you follow the same procedure for ventilation and use a full flow system and if your market changes you can switch seams for the right coal for your market or work multiple seams and blend coal.
Another clever initiative is to utilise all your waste material and instead of dumping it on a dirthill you crush it to a powder and mix it with a resin based cement and blow it back underground as a dry powder/cement mix and instead of stopping off a face you cap it and put this mixture into a cement plant and simply add water and pump this waste/concrete mixture into the cap and let it flow to fill the entire face workings and flow into all areas to minimise subsidence and being so fluid it fills the gobbings, packs, and every void in the old workings; hence no dirthill to deal with later. Using this method reduced the need for ventilation, it reduces the amount of gas from exposed coal workings, and makes the ground around it much more stable and its cost is offset by not having to dispose of this waste by tipping and the reduction in energy consumption by being to use much smaller ventilation fans. |
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